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Tuesday, 7 February 2012

Chapter 16

Note to the reader: see the note on the previous chapter, I can't be bother to compose a new one.

Chapter !^ (16): old pajamas

It was Tuesday and water was dripping from the sky, and it was following a Monday during which it was also pouring with rain. Monday was spent in bed, with a massive head-ache caused by extreme consumption of alcoholic drinks. Mr BooHoo's head hurt occasionally on that Tuesday although he had avoided drinking anything wrong the previous day. It was that particular, ominous, stress-induced head-ache that was hunting him during his adult life. Every day that passed he hated being an adult more than he had done on the previous one. The perks of being able to have ice-cream instead of a proper meal or buy his own air-plane tickets were not enough any more to appease his reluctance for unnecessary processes that signified adulthood.

It was the beginning of the month and therefor he had to go to the bank and pay the rent. There he was served by a clerk that Mr BooHoo was sure that had never been a child. The sort of anal bureaucrat that had slipped out of a mother's ass with spectacles, a tie and premature hair-loss. They had met before and Mr BooHoo was sure that the bureaucrat's feelings towards him were equally negative and strong. It took ages to get to the cashier, despite the fact that there were only two people standing in the line in front of him, and that period of waiting aimlessly was enough to make his little heart pound. He had been experiencing miniature panic attacks whenever he found himself in that kind of environment.

After that he postponed a couple more things that he should have done, did his weekly shopping from the super-market and returned home. As he was preparing a delicious spinach-tart his phone rung. Thus he was obliged to leave his dog alone and visit an acquaintance that claimed to be in need of mental support and spend a couple of hours in a dingy shop talking about pointless crap.

Mr BooHoo had been avoiding looking at the newspapers or watching television for some time but still the news kept finding their way to him. This time the unfortunate bearer of bad news was his sister. Bla-dy-bla the government was sold-out and bla-dy-bla the salaries would be further reduced and bla-dy-bla life is suffering. The last part was not announced directly through the media, nor was it his sister's exact words but Mr BooHoo's general belief. In direct response to this his logic suggested "why bother, then" but his abnormal sense of morality forced him to care a lot actually. For everything. And almost constantly. His sister was kind enough to say after multiple minutes of silence from his side of the line "I am freaking out and freaking you out as well and this gets us nowhere" or something like that and finished the call.

What followed was a feeling of increasing stress and discomfort. A big L sign, for looser, was starting to burn on Mr BooHoo's forehead. It was just too much. Mr BooHoo filled for himself the largest cup of a concoction of sedative herbal infusions and started looking for a second and perhaps a third job. You see, the tricky part was that Mr BooHoo had this tendency to mix business with pleasure and was never sure how many jobs he was doing. He was sure he had a part-time teaching job for which he hadn't been paid for a year and some volunteer but interesting obligations on the side, he was also taking care of his house, dog and partner and he was constantly making things, when he did not have a head-ache or other important engagements.

And as he was doing this he realized that the reason why he did not have a more specific job was because he did not really want one. To be totally honest if he would start getting his salary he would probably not need one so badly. Now, it should be mentioned that among other things, Mr BooHoo was also a person that thought many steps into the future and the prospect of being extra busy made him feel more energetic, more alive and instead of a looser he thought himself as a winner! What a relief! That herbal tea was miraculous! No social stress at all! With two telephones written down in his big brown notebook he could go to bed breathing normally,with a normal heart-beat and no stomach-ache. He put on his orange pajamas with the snowman and the penguin (a 1990's relic of his childhood he had recently retrieved from his mother's house). Who knows? He might even dream of nice places and open fields and that the world had actually followed his advice and has gone fuck itself.